Hollywood, Calif. - The Gnomon Workshop, provider of professional training for artists in the entertainment and design field, announced a new 3D rendering training DVD taught by VFX artist Alessandro Cangelosi. The latest training DVD release from The Gnomon Workshop covers rendering techniques for 3ds Max and mental ray.

Cangelosi is currently working as technical director and VFX artist at Renkewitz Studios and as a freelance VFX artist. He has worked on videogame cinematics, such as Ghostbusters and Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, in commercial advertising for 3DEutig, and in music videos for international Italian artists, such as Eros Ramazzotti.

Cangelosi has been credited in numerous national and international movies, such as Dear Anne, A Gift of New Hope, 2012, Fascisti su Marte, Imperium: Augusto, The Apocalypse, and L'anima Gemella. He has also worked on national and international documentaries and developed plug-ins and custom tools for Autodesk 3ds Max. Cangelosi has taught at various Italian institutes for visual effects and written technical articles on CG-related topics.

In this DVD, Alessandro Cangelosi leads students through various rendering techniques for architectural realistic rendering, creating procedural natural environments, live integration, scripting, and various secondary effects, such as depth of field and volume lighting. He covers procedural modeling, shading, lighting, and scene management using mental ray, then composites the rendered passes using Autodesk Combustion and Composite (aka Toxik), to achieve a film or photorealistic look. Alessandro also takes a look at how to control rendering features using MAXScript to add some custom tools to the pipeline.